


The Sorcerer's Dilemma

by Sarah Shaw (STatoun)



Category: Sorcerer to the Crown - Zen Cho
Genre: Complete, Dragons, Elvet, Familiars, Gen, Half-Vampires, One Hundred years later, Post-Canon, Sorcerers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22647427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/STatoun/pseuds/Sarah%20Shaw
Summary: Prunella and Zacharias Wythe's great grandson, Wilfred Midsommer, becomes the first male Sorcerer to the Crown in a hundred years, sparking unrest.
Kudos: 3





	The Sorcerer's Dilemma

The Sorcerer’s Dilemma - Sarah Shaw

Lord Wilfred Midsomer, Sorcerer to the Crown, was vexed. Of course Leofric had apologized very handsomely for it, at least by his own lights, but still…  
Wilfred had returned from his travels only with the utmost reluctance to take up his sorcery duties upon the death of his great aunt, Lady Goneril, the last Sorceress to the Crown and daughter of Prunella Wythe.  
The absence of an immediate heir of the blood had left a great many people very disgruntled, and not in Great Britain alone. The Vampiresses in parts of Indochina were said to be up in arms and there were even some ominous rumblings from Faery.  
Wilfred sighed. There was nothing he could do about that. As if he had wished to be born into the least liked line of royal sorcerers, the unwanted offspring of a frivolous female Wythe who had overlooked the personal (lack of) qualities of her ugly-tempered part-dragon spouse for the sake of the title, money and social status. Geoffrey Midsomer III had been no more interested in his puny descendant than his wife and so Wilfred had been allowed a childhood mercifully away from their malevolent influence. And as they were both as stupid as they were ill-tempered they had equally mercifully managed to leave this mortal toil before Wilfred was ten. He had filled the time since first with a Grand Tour in the usual way, followed by university at Leiden and Peking and then in a great deal of travel and study in Moslem lands, reading obscure texts in Arabic and Persian.  
But when Goneril had died at the ripe old age of ninety, never having married or produced any children of her own there had been no choice but to return and take up his duties.  
Not that anyone really wanted him to. There had not been a male royal sorcerer in more than one hundred years and no one quite knew what to do with one anymore. The two familiars had also been quite dubious. But the cimurgh had sat on his shoulder and pecked him like a parrot, drawing blood and the scent of it had satisfied both of them.  
“He sure smells like Prue,” said the one.  
“Except kind of masculine like. Something like Zach- a lot like Zach in fact.” The unicorn studied him carefully. “You sure you aren’t? Haven’t found a way to come back, have you? I was surprised, really, that he didn’t let himself be eaten, after all, in order to be with Prue, but then he was a religious man. There’s no accounting for people like that.”  
They spoke in his thoughts, of course, never having learned human speech. The fact that he understood them easily enough was all the further sign they needed. The staff, too, had accepted him without question - and so it was done.  
And now, just when he was beginning to settle into his job and people had begun gradually to come around, Leofric had to go and spoil it all.  
Not that he could entirely blame Leofric, of course. The cimurgh even on a good day could be an extremely annoying creature. But it had been Leofric’s choice to return once again to mortal realms. No one had expected him- nor much wanted him, for that matter. And having returned he should have tried harder to obey mortal rules. Bad enough that he should have taken up with that awful cousin of Wilfred’s - Gordon Midsomer. A tedious wastrel who spent all his time in gaming clubs and dance halls, wasting the family money and time and never doing a lick of serious work.  
Now the fellow, having acquired a dragon, had gone from tedious to insupportable, strutting around and cursing anyone who didn’t accord him the proper respect as a newly minted sorcerer. Wilfred had been kept away from the more pressing concerns of the realm by the press of outraged relatives demanding that he instantly turn their froggy dear ones back into their original shape. Really, the man needed a keeper and if only he could have found someone with enough magic to counteract an idiot with a dragon at his command he would have instantly relieved himself of this tiresome chore.  
But there was no one. Britain was suffering once again from a dearth of magic. Really, he could hardly fault the Faery Queen, for the country had made itself the schoolyard bully of the world, interfering everywhere in affairs it did not understand and disrupting delicate networks of a thousand years duration. Wilfred had seen the effects over and over again while abroad: the British were widely reviled and justly feared. Limiting the country’s magic was the only sensible course under the circumstances. They were doing enough damage as it was.  
And now to compound it all Leofric had had to go and eat the cimurgh. Which meant that the Sorcerer to the Crown was once more down to a single familiar. Another hundred year old precedent broken, and what was he to do about it?  
He could, of course, hatch one of the other eggs. Or even all of them if he chose. But no, one familiar was bad enough. He rather liked the unicorn, who left him alone and didn’t pester him with questions or make silly, carping comments on everyone they met. Of course if he could be sure that one of the eggs was a dragon he might risk it. A dragon familiar was a tradition dating back to the founding of the Academy. It might help bolster his standing if he could boast a dragon familiar.  
But no, the maddening Gordon was the only one in the kingdom who could now claim a dragon as his familiar. What on earth had Leofric been thinking? Wilfred sighed again and finished putting on his spats. It was going to be a long day.

“Gentlemen,” said the head of the council, then nodded graciously toward the other side of the room, “and ladies. We all know why we have been called together today. We have many matters to deal with but this- THIS is an outrage upon our honor as Magicians and Magiciennes, Sorcerers and Sorceresses- all of magicdom, in fact. It is so enormous and infamous act that we have sent a message to the King of Faery to send a representative.”  
They all looked around, puzzled, seeing no one they did not know who could possibly be there from Faerydom.  
Then a muff around the neck of one of the sorceresses stirred, opened a lazy eye, saying, “It’s me.” Then it closed the one eye again, settled itself more comfortably on its wearer’s shoulders and went back to sleep.  
“Really, Lady Eva? How am I to take this? Your own elvet familiar is to act as judge from Faeryland?” the head of the council said stiffly.  
“Sorry Sir Francis,” replied the lady, who really was a very dear girl and not at all high in the instep despite being the foremost sorceress in the land after the death of Lady Goneril. “The King said he was busy and didn’t have time to look about him for anyone else.”  
Sir Francis, dignity thoroughly ruffled, said, “Yes, well he might at least have told me… But I suppose there’s nothing to be done about it now. We must just carry on with the trial as best we can.”  
Leofric, an adolescent by the standards of Faery and inclined to the behavior of adolescents everywhere said sulkily, “I said I was sorry!”  
Wilfred looked at him thoughtfully. He could bring up the dragon’s age as a mitigating circumstance but that was not likely to go over well either with the council or the dragon himself. Leofric, after all, had been the dragon familiar of Sorcerers to the Crown from ancient times. It was hard for the mortal mind to comprehend that all that time ago he had been just past boyhood, inclined to the hijinks of youth and too frisky by half. Wilfred was sure Leofric’s age accounted for quite half the magical wars the kingdom had engaged in in those years. He shuddered at the thought of trying to control a high-spirited dragon youth as one’s familiar. On the whole he was very glad to be left with his ancestress’s familiar and not his ancestor’s.  
“It’s all between immortals anyway,” said Gordon, his tone just as sulky as his dragon’s. “Nothing to do with any of us.”  
Sir Francis was Gordon’s uncle, but this was too much for him. In freezing accents he said, “You forget yourself, Sir. It is part of the covenant you agree to when you take on a familiar. Every sorcerer with a familiar is accountable for its behavior. We cannot try immortals directly, of course, that’s for the Faery King’s own courts to decide. But we can try you, Sir, and we will!”  
“Me! What did I do? Did I tell him to eat the cimurgh? No! Did I tell him to drink that dragon juice? No! Just because he’s such an idiot when he gets in his cups is no reason to punish me!” Thus Gordon Midsommer, stuttering into high gear.  
The dragon turned a baleful eye on him. “I beg your pardon?”  
“Well it is your fault, Leo. You know it is.”  
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to let some jumped up human call me names in front of the court! If you don’t want to be eaten yourself just you keep a civil tongue in your head!”  
Wilfred turned to the dragon, puzzled and suspicious. He took out his monocle deliberately and inspected it carefully from head to claw. Then he put it away again and said deliberately. “That is not a tone I have every heard a familiar take with its mortal.” He turned his head and said sharply, “Lady Eva? Your judgement, please?”  
Lady Eva poked her elvet awake. “What is it now?” it sighed.  
“The exchange that just took place- Lady Eva?”  
Lady Eva nodded and conveyed the scene just enacted silently.  
“Is that, in your professional opinion as a familiar of some years standing the kind of exchange that would take place between a true familiar and its mortal?”  
The elvet didn’t have to consider long. “No. But then I always thought the whole notion of Gordon Midsommer having a familiar ridiculous. No one in the country less likely to attract one, much less one of Leofric’s standing.”  
Sir Francis was frowning. “What are you saying, Lord Wilfred? Surely you are not accusing Leofric of all dragons…”  
Wilfred fixed his eye sternly on the dragon, who seemed to be having some trouble meeting his eye. “What do you say to that, Leofric? On your honor as a dragon of the Pendragon house are you prepared to swear that you have entered into a true pact with Lord Gordon Midsommer?”  
Leofric dug a toe into the dirt. Unfortunately his toe was a claw and the floor was not made of dirt but Italian marble. It left a nasty gouge. “Not to say a pact exactly…”  
This produced a sensation. There were exclamations of surprise and murmurs of alarm.  
Sir Francis, on his high horse, turned bright red and began to shout at Gordon. “What do you mean by it, Sir? You know that it is illegal to have a dragon in the realm in any other capacity than a familiar. How dare you, Sir? Do you know the damage you may have caused- be even now causing- by allowing a citizen of Faerydom to dwell with you in this sinful state? The insult to your house, the stain on your future children’s honor?”  
“Leofric,” Wilfred said quietly. The dragon looked at him guiltily. “Tell me why you’ve done this thing.”  
Leofric looked away shiftily and muttered something about Gordon.  
“No,” Wilfred said sternly. “That won’t do. Gordon hasn’t the wit to conceive of such a plan, much less to convince you to agree. We all know the mind that must be behind this.”  
Gordon sputtered ineffectually, but the dragon looked rather pleased with this and said, “Well, I did think it would be a good joke.”  
“Joke? Joke!” Sir Francis had reached the gobbling stage. If he turned any more purple he’d faint. Wilfred sent a calming spell his way and turned his attention back to the dragon.  
“I believe you thought something else,” he prompted.  
It was not hard for a dragon to blush but they rarely did so, being far too arrogant in general to believe they had cause. Leofric quite clearly blushed.  
“Well- well, it was so boring back in Faery and I did enjoy living in Britain. And if it hadn’t been for Prunella I never would have left. But then she snatched me right out of Zacharias and sent me back to Faery and I’d no way to return after that. At least until Gordon here ventured near the borders. Then it was easy enough. Of course I wasn’t such a clunch as to actually enter a pact with him!” He shuddered. “Who wants that soul- and I imagine his flesh would be pretty nasty as well.”  
“Don’t be rude,” Wilfred told him sternly. You had to be firm with these dragons. He’d had quite a few dealings with them in China where the rules about familiars and pacts didn’t apply. Chinese dragons enjoyed a great deal of license and one had to learn to stand one’s ground if one did not want to become a dragon fricassi.  
“What will you do with me now? Please don’t make me go back!” Leofric pleaded.  
“That’s still to be seen,” Wilfred said and then pressing inexorably asked, “Tell me why you ate my familiar.”  
“It did seem providential,” the dragon muttered. “A male sorcerer to the crown again after so many years- and one without a dragon to lend him countenance. Still, I would never have done it if the cimurgh hadn’t provoked me.”  
The elvet stirred again and said severely, “There is no provocation that deserves being eaten for.”  
Leofric turned his enormous eyes on the elvet and said venomously, “How would you know? You elvets are generally the ones doing the provoking!”  
The elvet, evidently becoming nervous, turned and buried its face in Lady Eva’s shoulder.  
“There,” she said, stroking the fur of the muff. Then she turned angrily on the dragon. “Really, Leofric I’ve had quite enough of you! I hope Lord Wilfred does send you off back to Faery! It’s more than you deserve! Well, he’s a kind man and may give you what you wish, but if he does, mind you stop threatening the other immortals and behave yourself like a good dragon!”  
Such is the effect of a really good scolding by a top sorceress that Leofric blushed all over and went so far as to hide his eyes under his tail.  
“Leofric,” Wilfred said, calling him to order again. “Do I understand that you were attempting to attract my attention with the intention of convincing me to enter into a pact of familiarity with you?”  
“You could say that,” the dragon started to hedge, and then gave it up. “Yes.”  
“And that you ate my familiar in an attempt to further this aim?”  
“Well, it was a very provoking familiar, but yes,” answered the dragon.  
“You realize that you deserve, as Lady Eva suggests, to be sent immediately back to Faery in disgrace,” Wilfred said sternly.  
Leofric quailed. “Please don’t. You don’t know what the Queen’s like when she’s angry. Lady Eva has nothing on her!”  
Wilfred raised his eyebrows and glanced at Lady Eva. “I can imagine,” he said mildly. “Very well. I have studied the records of my predecessors and have seen that your service was highly esteemed by them one and all. I will agree to the pact - on the condition, as Lady Eva says, that you stop threatening the other immortals and behave yourself.”  
The large dragon eyes grew bright and the tail frisked a little. “Oh, I will! You’ll have no more cause to complain of me than any of your predecessors, I promise you!”  
Lord Wilfred nodded and turned to Lady Eva courteously. “Lady Eva, your blade if you please?”  
Lady Eva drew forth a silver dagger and handed it to him. “Oh, pooh,” said the muff at her neck sourly.  
He made a generous cut and allowed the blood to flow. The dragon crept forward and lapped at it delicately, it’s face rapturous.  
“Ah,” it said finally. “I am restored to my full powers at last.”  
He made a courtly bow to Wilfred and then to the rest of the court. He seemed, indeed, to have grown substantially in size and dignity. “I apologize for my rather childish behavior, ladies and gentlemen. I can blame in part the spell that was cast on me in punishment for my early return to Faery after my banishment, but a larger part of it I must own was entirely my own fault and simply inexcusable. I have already apologized to the cimurgh’s relatives and they have most generously forgiven. The cimurgh, too,” here he burped delicately, “seems to have settled in nicely. At any rate I haven’t had the least tummy ache with it so I hope it’s satisfied.”  
Wilfred restored the blade to Lady Eva. To his surprise she licked the blade clean and a beatific smile came over her face. “Your taste is excellent, Leofric. I see now why you were so anxious for the pact. Lord Wilfred, I hope to see more of you in the coming days.”  
Wilfred felt a moment’s alarm, but then reflected that one should hardly be surprised that the daughter of a Vampiress should make her judgements of human character based upon blood.  
He looked at her thoughtfully and agreed, “Indeed I should like to hear more of your family story.”  
She smiled. He thought she even blushed a little, though those with vampire blood are much less prone to blushing than dragons. She was a very attractive woman, however, and not long out of her own adolescence. That no doubt accounted for it. He thought he would very much enjoy getting to know her better.


End file.
